Did you know that not supporting racist vigilante group the Minutemen means that you are not serious about national security? Well I didn’t, until I read California Yankee at Redstate. This immigration debate sure is bringing some fine people into the Republican coalition.

Now, let’s drill down a bit into the Minutemen, a group that relies for its support on racist and economically disposessed angry whites. The Minutemen is part of a wave of ‘nativist’ groups, who usually flourish in economically dour times and channel a sense of rage and powerlessness against immigrants, and usually those with brown skin at that. Want to know how nice the Minutemen are? Check out their founder Jim Gilchrist’s statements, from the Southern Poverty Law Center:

Less than a year ago, Jim Gilchrist’s vision of the future was plainly apocalyptic. The country, he predicted to one newspaper reporter, will have "100 tribes with 100 languages," a situation from which "mayhem" will result. "I see neighborhood armies of 20 to 40 going out and killing and invading one another," he said. Too many immigrants, he added, could even result in a full-scale civil war — a situation he suggested might be avoided by inciting a revolution in Mexico.

Check please.

But Gilchrist has larger ambitions. He just ran and lost an independent bid for Congress in the 48th district in California to replace Representative Chris Cox. And though he didn’t run on the Republican Party line, he did offer to caucus with the GOP, Tom Tancredo endorsed him, and his supporters certainly were Republican stalwarts. I followed the race through the Powder Blue blog, which covers immigration and Orange County Republican politics. Though bucking the party this once, the blogger at Powder Blue is a staunch Republican activist who started blogging because his neighbor Hugh Hewitt gave him enouragement. In other words, Gilchrist is well within the mainstream of the Republican Party and the right-wing blogosphere. 100 tribes with 100 languages, and neighbors killing one another. Mainstream alright.

And what does Redstate say about the Minutemen? Redstate is my favorite racist right-wing blog, famous for calling Coretta Scott King’s funeral a ‘Def Comedy Jam spectacle’ with ‘demands for handouts’. Their opinion is that Howard Dean and the DNC, in condemning the Minutemen, wasn’t serious about protecting America’s national security. This is a constant right-wing theme, that Democrats are weak at protecting America (though we do tend to win wars, and they tend to lose them). But in this case, right-wing bloggers are going out of their way to support grassroots vigiliante activity.

Today, we’re seeing the rise of the Minutemen — a group of American citizens that have banded together to do the job our government refuses to do. And, it’s a group of sane adult Americans — clerks, doctors, engineers, businessmen, teachers, housewives and retirees who have felt moved to leave the comfort of their homes to sit in a lawnchair in sizzling heat along the southern border.

But it gets more extreme. Take a gander over to Stormfront, a site for actual white supremacists, and you’ll see that Jim Gilchrist is (or was) admired there as a leader, though there are two specific complaints. One, he is always explaining to the press that he is not a racist, and the skinheads don’t like that because it is seen as pandering to the excessively PC press. Two, he is seen as a bit too greedy and ineffective for their tastes. You see, the Stormfronters agree with Gilchrist’s aims, they just don’t think he’s doing a very good job. Keep in mind that this is a neo-Nazi community, one whose motto is ‘White Pride World Wide’. The links between the Minutemen and the white supremacist groups are real, though not formal. The Minutemen are very good at mainstreaming neo-Nazi groups, as David Neiwert has documented repeatedly in his superb blog. Now this is not to say that the Minutemen are neo-Nazis, because they aren’t. But the fact that you have Jim Gilchrist openly predicting a race war, neo-Nazis expressing admiration and respect for him, and Redstate community leaders like California Yankee using Gilchrist’s organization as the model for patriotism and national security, well, that’s just really creepy.

One thing that the internet is doing is bringing out the little noticed barroom-like discussions all over the country, and making them google accessible. That’s the case with these discussions on various right-wing web sites. Now, let me make one thing very clear. Redstate is NOT Stormfront. It is NOT a neo-Nazi site. But the links between the white supremacist movement and the mainstream right-wing, through intermediaries like the Minutemen, are quite clear. The same linguistic tricks are in evidence, the paranoia, the hatred of an excessively ‘PC’ media, the hatred of big government, the lionization of guns, the strong profession of love for personal liberty, the hatred of gays, and the extreme distaste of ‘multiculturalism’. The difference is that there is a lot more anti-semitism and lunacy on Stormfront, as well as a vague economic populism and hatred of both parties.

Here’s where it gets interesting. White supremacists do have political aims, and there are strategic arguments about how to achieve them. Many argue that there is no point in participating and guns are the answer, others argue for a third party, and a some argue that hijacking the Republican party makes the most sense. I really recommend this thread, titled ‘can we infiltrate the Republican party?’

You know so many people in the WN movement try to be in the "third position" i don’t even know if that group who went by that name is even still around. I think what’s important is that white nationalists infiltrate the republican and democratic party because it’s impossible to have a third party at least in the long run. Just infilatrate, like the communists did the democrat party, like the NeoCons did to the republican party.

It’s easy to, I’ve done it and it’s not that hard. Just go to your local republican office and attend a few meetings. Make friends with a few, volunteer to help out with things. Help out on some campaigns and then run on a non-racist platform. You think Jews run on a pro-Jewish platform? They’re smarter than that, why don’t we do it?

American never had space for a third party. It would be nice to entertain that thought, maybe for a certain small region, but money is what wins elections and if you aren’t in either large party then you are missing it. Having grown up in San Francisco, I also think the republican voters would be a lot easier to convert, but if you want to go ahead and vote democrat then do so.

Goldwater is in the past, let’s focus on the future. Many learned from the Golwater campaign and led successful political careers. Jews right now control both parties, but I was elected to a high position in midwest state’s college republicans and I’m sure anyone else can do that too. You know what I did with my conservative club? Besides watching the presidential elections and sponsoring republican speakers I showed the movie about the USS LIberty and tried to get a Straight Pride Day going.

First, notice the conflation of sexuality, antisemitism, and white supremacy with the ‘Straight Pride Day’. Second, realize that this person feels that the movement conservative club is his most appropriate mainstream political home. This potential alliance, which exists only in rhetorical form, is very very dangerous. It’s not at political maturity, and it won’t be for some years. White supremacy will take a lot more work to become mainstreamed, but like a virus in transition from one species to another, its linguistic patterns are taking on more and more mainstream conservative libertarian tones. And from the other end, the movement conservatives are getting angrier and more frustrated, more prone to appeals from extremists. I spent seven months in New Jersey reading the newspaper forums at NJ.com, and the coded racial language was crystal clear. I’ve been to townhall.com Meetups, where one person told me that he was just waiting for the order to put the brownshirts on. This is not a joke. We’re far away from a real politial alliance between these groups, but it’s not inconceivable.

I’m pretty apprehensive at what’s going on in this country. Not because I believe that we’re in immediate danger, but because we could very well be in a situation where very violent social forces are beginning to organize themselves, and given the right set of circumstances, to achieve and wield some measure of power. These circumstances might include an economic depression or long recession, a massive terrorist incident, a pandemic where the military becomes the primary instrument of effective government policy, hyperinflation, or an unnaturally large series of natural disasters. Now, some of these events are more likely than others, but none of them are out of the realm of possibility. Political systems can snap pretty quickly; FDR’s 100 days took, well, 100 days. But the combination of Presidential lawlessness, violent rhetoric, and increasing calls for vigilante-style violence are an architecture for something that could be much worse down the road.

In other words, this extremist sentiment is extraordinarily disturbing, because I don’t think this is just rhetoric. I think that they mean what they say.

(I couldn’t have written this without David Neiwert’s amazing Orcinus blog. He is truly an expert on this subject.)

Sheez. So there is no translator that speaks the detaineeâ€™s language available for trial and no one can answer whether there was a translator available during interrogations. The detainee is charged with war crimes relating to a) a grenade thrown at a car of journalists and b) â€œhelpingâ€ an al-Qaeda â€œoperativeâ€ Hadi. Re: the grenade he says he told US interrogators in Afgh the identities of those who hurled the grenade, which resulted in serious injury to a journalist. Now that its time, after a few years, for a tribunal â€“ uh, theâ€ the military commissions’ chief prosecutor, Air Force Col. Morris Davis, said the U.S. government wasn’t likely to accuse Zahir of being the attackerâ€ Seems they have others detained for doing that.

The detainee (Zahir) claims that he was a government guesthouse worker at a hotel run by the Taliban and that they assigned him to translate and run errands for an Arab there â€“ Hadi. The Prosecution says Hadi was a â€œknown member of al-Qaedaâ€ so of course, it is a war crime for Zahir to have translated for him. The prosecutor is convinced the Supreme Court just doesnâ€™t get it, bc troops are still being attacked by insurgents in Afghanistan. No, actually, not insurgents. â€œEnemy Combatantsâ€ â€“ the guys to whom no rules apply.

Anyway, we are bending over backwards to protect Zahir (waiting for over two years for this hearing). He got to go forward without a translator or charges in a language he could understand.
â€œZahir agreed to go on even without a court translator or a copy of the charges against him in his native Persian. He also said he was satisfied for now with “Colonel Tom,” Army reservist Lt. Col. Thomas Bogar, who is assigned to defend him.â€

Well he should be. After all, at great cost to our nations economic center, we provided Zahir with a tax attorney (Bogar, a Philadelphia tax lawyer in civilian life) to defend him in his war crimes trial. And during tax season too. Weâ€™re good that way. And even though Bogar doesnâ€™t speak or understand Persian and doesnâ€™t have a translator available, does that matter if he understands the intricacies of like kind exchanges?

Great post Matt, thank you so much because yes it is disturbing and dangerous. For them to use terms like: â€˜nativistâ€™ groups, “100 tribes with 100 languages”, in the way they do is offensive to me being Native American.

Matt: thank you for this, These people have been flying under the radar for too long now. David Neiwert of Orcinus has also been tracking the nefarious movements of nazis re-emerging in the Northwest. Considering the current state of our fascist-leaning government, posts like this one should be more common.

Awesome post, Matt. And all the admiration you’re getting in the comments, I will just think to myself that they are referring to me. Hope you don’t mind…

Also, I am slowly making updates to the project on exposing the right-wing blogosphere.

I posted a link to Matt’s often-referred post on RedState’s response to Coretta Scott King’s funeral. Additionally, I’ll make links to the Late Nite FDL’s for this series, and started work on Red State’s page (figure I’d bounce around from site to site. LGF’s layout was starting to burn the corneas in my eyes).

You really must go over and take a look at all the amazing work Matt O. is doing at The Great Society compiling all this stuff. It will be an excellent resource for anyone doing research on the topic of right-wing racism in the blogosphere.

The Stormfront site is freaky. Their theology forum includes a poll asking member Nazi’s whether they favor their Crusade with Inquisition, without Inquisition, or Inquisition only, hold the Crusade. The Crusading Inquisitors are in the lead. You can vote here:http://www.stormfront.org/foru…..p?t=276052
(sorry, ‘neither/nor’ is not an option)

Jane – I may be able to email you a pdf of the filing. Do you want me to try?

I don’t think it’s fair to tease – there is a LOT in the filing, including that Libby testified that the VP told him (Libby) that the PRESIDENT authorized the dissemination of the NIE and declassified it for that and Addington provided Libby with his opinion that this authorized Libby to make the revelations.

Marcy Winograd was mentioned in the last thread. She’s running to take Jane Harmon’s seat here in SoCal. Winograd was on Ian Masters’ 3/26 show along with Ned Lamont. You can stream or download the show here:

An old high-school friend has a small music and politics blog, and he posted some funny and scary stuff about Lynx and Lamb Gaedes (not sure of the spelling), preteen sisters who sing about White Pride.
It was amazing to see people come out of the woodwork and support their message.
Some of the people used their real names and I recognized them–I’d gone to school with them from 1st grade on.
Their music sucks–Google “Prussian Blue” and you’ll find it. Their message sucks way more.

Anyone awake this morning? Anyone living near an airport. I’ve seen one post anonymously on C&L about air traffic. Nothing! Nothing in the sky right now in the midwest near 3 major flight paths.

Nothing where I live in mountainside view of ALL air traffic in Honolulu. Nothing for half hour since I first read comment. Anyone liver near an airport and can tell me there is a plane overhead so the hairs on the back of my neck stand down?

Thanx for the post, I have been yellin at the top of my lungs for the last few years that we must develop a very wide anti-fascist front to isolate the 17-25% “true believers” in the body politic and provide cover for “moderates” who would not join a “Democrat” opposition but would feel safe in a broad opposition to the current administration and elected leadership. If we label and brand these folks “fascist” and devlope an “anti-fascist” opposition, we mobilize the anger of folks to vote against their enemy insted of tryin ta convince ‘em ta vote FOR a Democrat.

We can’t tug on our forelocks and scratch our armpits anymore about how to oppose what is happening without alienating the Moderates”…we don’t have time left, we hafta call a sapde a shovel and stop worryin’ about soundin’ “shrill”

It’s always been a strange part of the American political culture that the angry dispossessed vent their frustrations at other powerless people … whether its Southern whites against blacks seeking the vote or Minutemen against Hispanic immigrants … than against the corporate power structure which is the true cause of their woes.

Hmm Prussian Blue, Im sure they are terrible so I have a modest proposal why dont we ship them off to Germany, as long as Autum Ashante’ is deported to west Africa at the same time – say Sierra Leone. Seems fair does it not? PB will find themselves in a less multiethnic society and so will AA. Both parties will be able to see at first hand the kind of society “their” people would build without the “others” messing things up. Be interesting to see who demands to come back to the US first.

Gang — I can’t seem to pull up the Libby filing off Pacer this morning. My connection is slow. Would some kind soul send a copy to me if they have one? ReddHedd at AOL dot com. Thanks heaps…from what I’ve read in a couple of articles already this morning, it sounds like it is a scorching replay. And I’d rather read the original if I could. Thanks in advance…

OT – Not to blogjack or anything, but I wrote up an account of last night’s Ned Lamont speech at the Democrats For Americalink meeting in New Haven on my blog FutureDV, and I also have a .wav sound file of the speech available if anybody wants a copy. After you finish reading FDL, stop by for a quick visit.

A former White House aide under indictment for obstructing a leak probe, I. Lewis Libby, testified to a grand jury that he gave information from a closely-guarded “National Intelligence Estimate” on Iraq to a New York Times reporter in 2003 with the specific permission of President Bush, according to a new court filing from the special prosecutor in the case.

Libopinion — yeah, read the Sun. Wanted the original Libby filing. Larry, glad to know it isn’t just me having Pacer problems, then. If anyone has already pulled a copy of the filing and can send it to me, I’ll be really grateful!

just read Sun story: I’m flabbergasted. I have long been fascinated by the courtesy call Fitzy made to the Preznit’s personal lawyer on Fitzmas. We have long known Cheney was in the crosshairs directly but Bush his bad self too?

Ya think? Remember Bush’s denials at that time? How he played it like he didn’t know anything? The “If anyone in my administration leaked classified info, I want to know about it?”. LIAR. He knew exactly what was going on and was helping cover it up. This is so much worse than Clinton wagging his finger.

Now remember kiddies, if the President does it – it is not against the law. (According to Nixon.) The wingnuts are going to argue that Bush can declassify anything he likes – but this puts him at the center of the push back on Wilson. He had to know what was going on. He looked into the cameras and LIED his ass off.

California Yankee. Any relation to the blog California Yankee? The very same that has some supportive things to say for Joe Lieberman? Coincidence? I am loathe to call someone a redstater without really knowing the blog that well.

this is FITZY’s filing and he is chock-full of info. I just skimmed thru 15 pages and my head is spinning with all the info being tantalizingly released. It takes a Plameologist to catch all the tidbits and the cast of characters. I am going to have to read thru it a lot more carefully but this filing is a RICH ONE !

In a court filing late Wednesday responding to requests from Mr. Libby’s attorneys for government records that might aid his defense, Mr. Fitzgerald shed new light on Mr. Libby’s claims that he was authorized to provide sensitive information to the Times reporter, Judith Miller, at a meeting on July 8, 2003.

“Defendant testified that he was specifically authorized in advance of the meeting to disclose the key judgments of the classified NIE to Miller on that occasion because it was thought that the NIE was â€˜pretty definitive’ against what Ambassador Wilson had said and that the vice president thought that it was â€˜very important’ for the key judgments of the NIE to come out,” Mr. Fitzgerald wrote.

Mr. Libby is said to have testified that “at first” he rebuffed Mr. Cheney’s suggestion to release the information because the estimate was classified. However, according to the vice presidential aide, Mr. Cheney subsequently said he got permission for the release directly from Mr. Bush. “Defendant testified that the vice president later advised him that the president had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE,” the prosecution filing said.

My city is a liberal oasis in red state desert. It has a community parade every year in early March. This year The Minutemen wanted to join in and march in the parade. The parade organizers declined their request and were backed up by the city government. Then, during the parade, a local theatre group did a little skit deriding the Minutemen and their cause.

I’m very proud of my community. It’s hard to be progressive in a sea of reactionaries.

It’s been a while since filings have been posted on the Office of Special Counsel’s Web page. When I checked this morning, this particular filing wasn’t there, and it hasn’t yet been mentioned on Raw Story. Did the New York Sun break the story?

lina — You’re not from Chapel Hill, are you? We lived there in the 1970’s, when it was known (proudly) as Little Moscow. It was — and is — a wonderful place, and our hearts are breaking now for what’s going on in Durham, though Dook always was a different place entirely.

One more thought. This says something very fundamental about Bush. Bush’s biggest flaw (one of many) is he puts personal loyalty above everything else – competence, skill, truth, the rule of law, the well-being of the American people, … everything.

this filing also says that Libby his own bad self was instrumental in getting the WhiteHouse to deny that any of its folk had been involved in the leak. Scottys denial was done at the behest of Cheney who did it coz of entreaties by Libby ! ! !

Betcha most of those white supremacists are driving cars made in Japan, or at least made in American factories owned by Japanese companies. Why? Because they are both better and cheaper than American cars.

And you can be damn sure at least 75% of what they are wearing at any given moment comes from China, India, and origins East at prices they can certainly afford.

Oh, and finally, the PC’s they are using to spread their poison have parts mostly made in the Far East or places like Indonesia, Brazil, Mexico, you name it.

My point? These brain-dead critters are globalists and internationalists no matter what kind of hatred they spew.

Keep in mind that what LIBBY said is that the VP told him the Pres authorized, not that he spoke with the Pres himself.

BUt he did get an OK from Addington. and what was authorized was to leak parts of tne NIE – he doesn’t say the Pres told him he could leak Plame’s name/job.

There is so much in the filing though. e.g., there is evidence that they have provided to Libby that indicates a plan to discredit Wilson, Powell is the speaker of the “everyone knows” statement, Rove isn’t on the Gov’s witness list for Libby (despite the conversation they supposedly had) etc.

How many times has the Pres talked about leaks? Anyway, the filing indicates that the Pres, VP and Libby didn’t mention to others who wanted the NIE released more generally e.g., Hadley, that Libby had already been authorized to pass on to reporters.

“Did you know that not supporting racist vigilante group the Minutemen means …” Hmmmm. Did you know that Caesar Chavez and his UFW considered the illegally imigrated to be “scabs” and reported them to the INS, just like the Minutemen. Did that make them a “racist vigilante group” as well?

the Minute Men (*cough*cough) ‘are just good folks who are worried about our borders’.

Well, that’s roughly what my governor, Bill Richardson, said in a interview with Al Franken earlier this week.

Sorry it’s not an a exact qoute, I was in my car and didn’t have the ability to write down the exact words he spoke.

I called the guv’s office when I got home, and asked for a clarification, but the hapless staffer I spoke to knew nothing about the statement. I did suggest someone take a look at Orcinus, since DN is one of the best writers on the net about racism in America.

Richardson’s mother is Mexican. He spent many years living in Mexico as a child. He’d be the perfect person to talk about these issues, except he’s so hot to run for national office, he won’t take the chance he might actually stand for something.